Innocence, terror lay side-by-side at Worcester funeral home

Ndayishimiye David was born in 2003 in a refugee camp in Tanzania, after his parents fled the violence and poverty of their native Burundi. He contracted malaria when he was 3, which left the boy with a permanent stutter and a serious case of shyness.

His life would change in 2008, when his family was finally allowed to emigrate to the United States and obtain green cards. Eventually they settled in Worcester's Plumley Village, a stone's throw from the popular inner-city watering hole called Bell Pond.

“He was full of joy,” said his father, Jean-Claude Nsengiyumve. “He played soccer and basketball. He was very happy.”

But that happiness would be short-lived. The 10-year-old boy waded into the cold waters of Bell Pond with friends Friday afternoon and didn't resurface until divers retrieved his body the next day. It's a sad irony that Ndayishimiye's family traveled thousands of miles to provide a safe haven for their children, only to lose one of them in a watery grave so close to their new home.

Monday, a weary Jean-Claude sat in a Worcester funeral home and made burial arrangements for his son with employee Caroline Sullivan, unaware that the body of the infamous Boston Marathon bombing suspect lay two floors below, wrapped in a tight shroud on the top shelf of a small cooler in the basement. Outside, a handful of pathetic protesters with too much time on their hands continued to embarrass the city with their shouts that the corpse's presence is an embarrassment to the city. The noise could be heard by Jean-Claude, who seemed puzzled when the situation was explained to him.

“That's what they're yelling about?” he asked. “I don't understand ... I don't care anything about the terrorist. All I know is my son is dead and not coming back. I pray for him and hope he's in heaven.”

Ndayishimiye was the third of five children born to parents who fled Burundi, a poor and corrupt African country plagued by a violent civil war that ended in 2005. The dark-eyed little boy was in the third grade at Belmont Street Community School, where he enjoyed math and English. He loved music and adored the late Michael Jackson.

“He was a very nice kid and they loved him at school,” said the boy's father, speaking with the help of Fatima Mohamed, a Swahili translator. “It was a safe life we came to in America. We thought there would be no fear, no concern of what would happen. It would be peaceful.”

On Saturday, the medical examiner suggested that the family turn to Peter Stefan at Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors, which buries the city's poor. But when they drove to the funeral home, they saw police, protesters and the media lining the sidewalk.

“We were scared to get out of the car,” said Mohamed, a Muslim who wears a head scarf. “We drove around the corner. A reporter tried to talk to me. I said, 'I'm just trying to help these poor people who lost their son.' I was so scared, I just left.”

Hours before the family made their second trip to the Main Street funeral home, a Muslim man was arranging a burial for his mother. He was greeted by protestors who yelled at him to “go home” and “get the (expletive) out of this country.” Several were waving American flags.

Today, the bodies of two immigrants rest at the embattled funeral home. One was a hopeful young boy who adored life in a shiny, welcoming new land that stretched out before him like a dream. The other, a vicious terrorist who squandered the goodwill of a nation and his neighbors, doesn't deserve his name mentioned in the same breath as Ndayishimiye David.

“Everybody knows about this bomber,” Mohamed said sadly. “But only a handful of people know about the lovable little boy who drowned in the pond.”